Post Traumatic Quotes & Sayings

The thing about post-traumatic stress disorder, we know about one in five, about 20 percent of individuals that are exposed to a direct traumatic stress will develop this disorder. — Dale Archer

When I began writing, I did not realize that the Holocaust would become a critical part of the story. During and after WWII, neither the survivors of the Holocaust nor the combat solders were diagnosed or treated for what is now known as PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder). Many of the characters in this book were victims of this now well-known disorder. — Helene Uhlfelder

The unrelenting grip of Soldier's Syndrome slips finger by slow finger. The marrow's been affected - emotional leukemia at the deepest level. Transplants of love and friendship aid healing, yet time is still key, and the clock never ticks fast enough. Eternity gains perspective when seconds feel like years. How long have I been gone? Six eternities and counting. — Chila Woychik

In the comic-book lore, of course, you mutate post a traumatic event. You must have the mutant gene, but if something traumatic happens to you, usually at puberty, then that mutation manifests itself. — Gavin Hood

Support our troops!" we cry, but I say, "Love our veterans!" And when he neglects church, take him cookies anyway. Sing him a song. Pet his cat. — Chila Woychik

Many call it the 1000 yard stare and can't realize the pain when PTSD takes us there — Stanley Victor Paskavich

I had post-traumatic amnesia, five-second memory, it happens as a result of brain injury. — Richard Hammond

It was a myth you couldn't function on opiates: shooting up was one thing but for someone like me-jumping at pigeons beating from the sidewalk, afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder practically to the point of spasticity and cerebral palsy-pills were the key to being not only competent, but high-functioning. — Donna Tartt

Curiously, while drone operators are perhaps the safest of all combat troops physically, they have among the highest rates of depression and post-traumatic stress in the military and national security services. Sitting at a video console in Colorado or New York City, killing someone six thousand miles away and then collecting the kids at gymnastics or football practice, having dinner and sitting down to watch Dancing with the Stars in your suburban den was disorienting beyond belief. — Jeffery Deaver

Nothing like a little post-traumatic stress disorder to make your day complete. — Woody Allen

PTSD will be the worlds greatest horror for those that survive an all out Nuclear War. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

Sometimes a soldier returns home and all he can do is share his story in the hopes that somehow, in some way, it helps another soldier make sense of things. And although the stories may not be perfect, sometimes just sharing is enough to make a difference. — Michael Anthony

The number seven is magical, they say. Seven years 'til our cells completely regenerate. Seven years 'til Jacob possesses Rachel, no, Leah, and seven more for Rachel. Seven days in a week. Post traumatic stress often resolves itself in toto only after seven full years have passed. Such is the case for some brain trauma patients too. Seven. It's a number worth remembering. — Chila Woychik

Post-traumatic stress disorder didn't surface as a condition until 1980 ... that fact was very relevant when I remember back to how these men behaved. A lot of walking on eggshells was required for wives and children. — Matthew Nable

Positive psychology is not remotely intended to replace therapy or pharmacology. So when depressed, anxious or in panic or post-traumatic stress disorder, I am all for therapies that will work. Positive psychology is another arrow in the quiver of public policy and psychology through which we can raise wellbeing above zero. — Martin Seligman

The inability to get something out of your head is a signal that shouts, "Don't forget to deal with this!" As long as you experience fear or pain with a memory or flashback, there is a lie attached that needs to be confronted. In each healing step, there is a truth to be gathered and a lie to discard. — Christina Enevoldsen

PTSD in its rawest form is a death sentence which causes many veterans and others to execute themselves in hope to be free. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

It's traumatic to meditate on the availability of information through the Internet, or the way we perceive the world as a result. People don't experience things totally or viscerally anymore. It's all through representation, be it a record on YouTube or a post on a blog. — Sufjan Stevens

The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state but not to protect women or children from the superior power of men. It therefore provides strong guarantees for the rights of the accused but essentially no guarantees for the rights of the victim. If one set out by design to devise a system for provoking intrusive post-traumatic symptoms, one could not do better than a court of law. — Judith Lewis Herman

I thought, I might not look my best, I've forgotten half the words to my songs and I'm suffering from post-traumatic stress, but I've just got to get out there and do it. — Marc Almond

It is as though some old part of yourself wakes up in you, terrified, useless in the life you have, its skills and habits destructive but intact, and what is left of the present you, the person you have become, wilts and shrivels in sadness or despair: the person you have become is only a thin shell over this other, more electric and endangered self. The strongest, the least digested parts of your experience can rise up and put you back where you were when they occurred; all the rest of you stands back and weeps. — Peter Straub

As you may already know, post-traumatic stress disorder is extremely complex. Each client has a unique, perhaps virtually unbelievable, set of experiences, and an almost equally set of reactions to those experiences. — Aphrodite Matsakis

I went into Grace's den and picked up a book I'd bought from Amazon, Man's Search for Meaning. It had been written in 1946 by an Austrian of Jewish descent named Viktor Frankl. It was probably the first academic, intellectual approach to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, although he hadn't used that terminology. — Scott Pratt

I had built such a wall between my experiences and how I felt about those experiences that I was incapable of reliving both simultaneously. I could talk about my traumas, even walk through them, but I couldn't feel them. When I tried to bring it all together, when I tried to remember how I had felt, I disappeared in my own head. My to-do list took on grave importance. The book I read the night before filled my thoughts. Yesterday's article suddenly called out to be rewritten. I couldn't get inside myself. — Sarah Hackley

In talking with people that have experienced it, I learned that PTSD is something that a person in a position of authority sometimes thinks they're not supposed to have. They don't always have an avenue to personally address it or even discuss it. — Stana Katic

I didn't mean to scare you. I'm not suicidal if that's what's freaking you out. I'm not fucked up in the head. I'm not deranged. I'm not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm just a brother who loved his sister more than life itself, so I get a little intense when I think about her. — Colleen Hoover

Impending war was evidenced by the faraway expression in the older villagers' eyes, the shadows on their faces, not of fear but of sorrow. Because they knew; they had lived through the last war and they remembered the generation of young men who had marched off so willingly and never come back. Those too, like Daddy, who had made it home, but left in France a part of themselves that they could never recover. Who surrendered to moments, periodically, in which their eyes filmed and their lips whitened, and their minds gave over to sights and sounds they wouldn't share but couldn't shake. — Kate Morton

To plunge into passionate dispute over the trivialities of so-called honor is a queerer but not uncommon gambit of men who have just come from putting their lives at stake in serious combat, — Barbara W. Tuchman

Post-Traumatic Stress Injury isn't a disease. It's a wound to the soul that never heals. — Tom Glenn

I have attempted for years to make fun of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is a dangerous game. It's similar to poking fun at the largest, scariest bully at your school and assuming you won't get beat up. — Kelly Wilson

I think I ran so hard and so fast, in a lot of ways, from my life and I kind of took a fall. It was like - what do they call it? - post-traumatic stress syndrome. — Rose McGowan

One challenge is trying to extend access to more poorly served communities in rural areas and in the inner city. Sometimes you have kids who are suffering from trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, and they have no way of getting access to the remedies that are available to them. — Scott Stossel

I mean, they call it Stockholm Syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder. And, you know, I had no free will. I had virtually no free will until I was separated from them for about two weeks. — Patty Hearst

God, O God, where art thou? Thou art as distant to me as the lady combing rice in the Yunnan Province of China or a piece of floating space debris circling Pegasi. In this feeling-dead world of post traumatic stress, skepticism is king, queen, and court jester. — Chila Woychik

Virtual simulations allow post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers to re-experience the events that traumatized them, and then slowly desensitize themselves to their impact through repeated recreations involving not just sight and sound but even smell. — Douglas Rushkoff

First things first: studies show policing is hard. At a minimum, they prove many LEO's struggle to cope with what they are exposed to. For example, research indicates that while 8.2% of the general population suffers from an active alcohol or substance abuse addiction, up to 23% of public safety personnel, including law enforcement officers, are engaged in the same struggle. Furthermore, due to the constant exposure to violence, conflict, death, pain and suffering, coupled with the extremely stressful and draining nature of their work, police run a significant risk of experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries (PTSI)/Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Lastly, research by Dr. John Violanti in 2004 indicates a combination of alcohol use and PTSD produces a tenfold increase in the risk of suicide. This small snapshot of research paints a grim picture on how policing can negatively impact those that take up its calling. — Karen Rodwill Solomon

When I look at the statistics in more vulnerability-intolerant Viking-or-Victim professions, I see a dangerous pattern developing. And no place is this more evident than in the military. The statistics on post-traumatic-stress-related suicides, violence, addiction, and risk-taking all point to this haunting truth: For soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, coming home is more lethal than being in combat. From the invasion of Afghanistan to the summer of 2009, the US military lost 761 soldiers in combat in that country. Compare that to the 817 who took their own lives over the same period. And this number doesn't account for deaths related to violence, high-risk behaviors, and addiction. — Brene Brown

Your past can either cripple you or empower you. You choose. You can let your feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and shame keep you working jobs that suck your soul. Or you can go out and, with a little luck and guidance, write a new story of your life. It can be post-traumatic stress or it can be post-traumatic growth that defines you. You know as well as I do that in reality you don't have a choice.
You know as well as I do that in reality you don't have a choice. Your skeletons chase you no matter where you hide. It's about time to find your inner strength to pull through and make something of yourself. — Lucas Carlson

He tried hard to forget the images of war that now began to haunt him. — Jason Medina

More than 100,000 soldiers will soon return home with the post-traumatic stress I know so well, not to mention the mysterious effects of deplted uranium ... and the ripples of resentment and animosity this war has sent throughout the world will inevitably wash up on U.S. shores.
As I write this, mainstream political dialogue is still focused on the crazy idea that we can somehow still "win" the war in Iraq. For someone like me, a citizen of both countries, what outcome would constitute a victory? When you're talking about war, about so many thousands dead, so many families shattered on both sides, how can anyone claim victory? — Wafaa Bilal

The most common emotional defense is avoidance (an ineffective coping skill for any stressor) as expressed through denial (e.g., "That wasn't really bad, I barely remember it"). — Brian Luke Seaward

Post traumatic stress disorder starts out with nightmares, flashbacks and actually reliving the event. And this happens over and over and over and over in your mind. If you let it go on, it can become chronic and become hard if not impossible to treat. — Dale Archer

I think people who suffer from depression, unless it's post-traumatic, are probably going to struggle with it for their whole life. — Christina Ricci

post-traumatic growth could take five different forms: finding personal strength, gaining appreciation, forming deeper relationships, discovering more meaning in life, and seeing new possibilities. — Sheryl Sandberg

Are we turning back? Because if you're just trying to solve my post-traumatic stress problem by exposing me to rock sharks until I'm desensitized, trust me - that ship has sailed. — Elle Lothlorien

I've learned to lick
my own foul wounds
and prize the taste of ache. — Chila Woychik

The initial trauma of a young child may go underground but it will return to haunt us. — James Garbarino

I find Jessica Jones a much more interesting character to write for than Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is so noble and heroic, and I don't find that as interesting as one who's really damaged and flawed and has post-traumatic stress disorder. — Melissa Rosenberg

Post-traumatic shock, phooey. Seemed to me the trauma was trotting right along with me, like a dog on a leash with its owner. I was the dog. I — Robin McKinley

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome is an opportunity to fight your way to the stronger person you will become. — Reba Riley

Unlike simple stress, trauma changes your view of your life and yourself. It shatters your most basic assumptions about yourself and your world - "Life is good," "I'm safe," "People are kind," "I can trust others," "The future is likely to be good" - and replaces them with feelings like "The world is dangerous," "I can't win," "I can't trust other people," or "There's no hope. — Mark Goulston

It was difficult to find information because Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was called shell shock during W.W.II, and when Vietnam Vets were found to suffer from the same symptoms after exposure to traumatic war scenes, a study was embarked upon that ended with the new, more appropriate name in 1980. Thomas was diagnosed with P.T.S.D. shortly afterwards, before the term P.T.S.D. was common. — Sara Niles

Her [Sarah Palin] son went to Iraq under George W. Bush, but it gives us a chance to explain what post-traumatic stress disorder is. — Jon Soltz

I have this helicopter crash, and I fall in love with this man who was in the crash with me. I must have been suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. — Christie Brinkley

...I thought you had to go to Iraq to get post traumatic stress disorder. And you do. But you can also just come on over to my house! — Carrie Fisher

There was another epidemic that was not talked about much, a silent scourge - the explosion of mental illness: major depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, manic-depression, personality disorders, grief response, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, etc. - on a scale none of us had ever witnessed. — Chinua Achebe

I went to a psychiatrist (NBC insisted we all go) and told her I had been through traumatic experiences before and understood that the kidnapping would leave "fingerprints" on me for a while. The key was knowing what to expect. If you get blind drunk, you know you're going to wake up with a hangover. By the same token, I expected post-traumatic stress symptoms - anger, irritability, a sense of isolation - and I experienced those feelings, off and on, for several months. It's like having the monkey on your back again, and being self-aware helps shake him off. — Richard Engel

The author cites researcher David Howard's idea of post-traumatic growth. Howard contends that some individuals faced with a traumatic event actually develop new strength. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Triggers are like little psychic explosions that crash through avoidance and bring the dissociated, avoided trauma suddenly, unexpectedly, back into consciousness. — Carolyn Spring

The no-booze rule is one of several shams perpetuated by certain religious groups, presumably to keep their flocks in line. After all, what's a shepherd to do with drunk sheep?
So take your medicine, but leave the booze on the shelf. We have a label to keep, and it's not Jack Daniels. Don't mourn for me. Just tell me what to do rather than teach me what to be. Slam another pill, pop that one last sedative ... you'll find me in the kitchen, washing my glass. — Chila Woychik

Scientists have demonstrated that dramatic, positive changes can occur in our lives as a direct result of facing an extreme challenge - whether it's coping with a serious illness, daring to quit smoking, or dealing with depression. Researchers call this 'post-traumatic growth.' — Jane McGonigal

Men and women who have served in harm's way experience higher rates of divorce and suicide. Many battle the debilitating effects and stigma associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. — Ron Wyden

It fascinated me how depression and anxiety overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder. Had we been through some trauma we didn't know about? Was the noise and speed of modern life the trauma for our caveman brains? Was I that soft? Or was life a kind of war most people didn't see? — Matt Haig

Post-traumatic shock,' said Shaun. 'He thinks he's a boa constrictor. — Mira Grant

Some of the experiences endured by human beings on this earth are virtually unbelievable. — Aphrodite Matsakis

Fallow state, the Gardeners would say. They used that diagnosis for a wide range of conditions, from depression to post-traumatic stress to being permanently stoned. The theory was that while in a Fallow state you were gathering and conserving strength, nourishing yourself through meditation, sending invisible rootlets out into the universe. — Margaret Atwood

One of the things you never really see in a romance book is a woman who has self-esteem issues. I mean, I'm sure they're out there, but they're few and far between. Like they can have eating disorders, post-traumatic stress from sexual assault or mental abuse. They can be sold into sex trafficking and they can carry epic amounts of grief. We have female characters who have suffered every loss imaginable and ones who are scarred physically and mentality, but where in the hell are the average women? Ones who look in the mirror and cringe a little? Like, why are all those others acceptable to women, but reading or knowing another woman who has a low self-esteem is, like, worse than all that drama llama? — J. Lynn

July 15, 1991

Nita: My mother was a paragon of our neighborhood, People always come up to us with hugs, saying "You have the most wonderful mother." l'd think. "Don't you see what's going on in this house?" To this day, if somehow even in jest raises their hand to me, I will do this (raises hands to protect face and cowers) I cringe. Then they look at me like, what's your probem? You don't get that from a great childhood. — Sarah E. Olson

It is estimated that up to one third of police officers who face a traumatic event will develop some level of post-traumatic stress (Dowling F.G., 2006). Despite this high number of psychological casualties, law enforcement agencies nationwide fail to support and train for a psychological injury that can last far longer than the physical injuries received in combat (Blum, 2001). — Karen Rodwill Solomon

You've been told that you're broken. That you're damaged goods ... there is also Post-Traumatic Growth. You come back from war stronger and more sure of who you are. — James Mattis

It's post-traumatic stress disorder. When these women go ballistic and shoot their husbands or slice off their dicks, they aren't thinking about the consequences . . . just about stopping the aggression. — Jodi Picoult

People realize that we're very good at sending people to war, but we're not good at taking care of them. And people are coming back from war now; years ago, they would have been killed, now they're wounded; and they're coming back alive and with post-traumatic stress. So, I think Americans are sensible enough to know we've got to figure out a way to take care of them. — Anna Deavere Smith

My brother is a doctor and he will take care of post-traumatic stress. I think he'll do it for free. — Wladimir Klitschko

Rape and war, she explained are among the most common causes of post-traumatic stress disorder, and survivors of sexual assault frequently exhibit many of the same symptoms and behaviors as survivors of combat: flashbacks, insomnia, nightmares, hypervigilance, depression, isolation, suicidal thoughts, outbursts of anger, unrelenting anxiety, and an inability to shake the feeling that the world is spinning out of control. — Jon Krakauer

Post-traumatic stress is a powerful force with the ability to change us. Even the strongest of us. — Simon Wood

The portrayal of post-traumatic stress disorder and things like that felt really big and important. — Krysten Ritter

I have friends with post-traumatic stress - friends with post-traumatic stress who are, you know, highly successful, capable people. — Phil Klay

I didn't realize I actually had post-traumatic stress disorder at the time, but why would I think I had that? Anyway, how would I know which was post-traumatic stress, which is addiction, which is bipolar, which is Libra? — Carrie Fisher

The Republican Party, I really believe, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from years and years of bullying and taunting. The Republican Party is Jonathan Martin. The Democrat Party and the media are Richie Incognito. — Rush Limbaugh

Trauma is any stressor that occurs in a sudden and forceful way and is experienced as overwhelming. — Stephanie S. Covington

You have to let go of what you know to find out what you believe. — Reba Riley

In the 1980s, research on post traumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans was regarded as important, noble, and useful. When the same researchers looked at the same problem in children who had been sexually abused, a tremendous controversy ensued a controversy that persists to this day. There were those who disputed the extent and severity of the sexual abuse that had been uncovered. — Patrick J. Carnes

One of Coin's men lays a hand on my arm. Its not an aggressive move, really, but after the arena's I react defensively to any unfamiliar touch. I jerk my arm free and take off running down the halls. My mind does a quick inventory of my odd little hiding places and i wind up in the supply closet, curled up against a crate of chalk. — Suzanne Collins

I have also Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I wouldn't have survived that if not for music. So I think for me, music was a soothing thing and it was also a place where you could say all the stuff that you couldn't say anywhere else. — Sinead O'Connor

Iraq." As much as twenty percent of returning veterans from Iraq had post-traumatic stress, some thought even more. Aiden's anxiety was par for the course. Duncan wondered why he hadn't gotten therapy at the VA. — J.M. Madden

Always remember, if you have been diagnosed with PTSD, it is not a sign of weakness; rather, it is proof of your strength, because you have survived! — Michel Templet

the post-traumatic-stress-disordered often vacillate between phases of symptoms, moving from intrusion - the crying and howling nightmares and other asylum-worthy behaviors - to constriction and back, without predictability or reason. It's one of the many things that undermine their credibility with the outside world: People seem fine for a while, but then they're not fine, or they go from one extreme set of symptoms to an opposite one. — Mac McClelland

The central mechanism of the avoidance mechanism of PTSD is the ego defense of denial — Frank M. Ochberg

Often it isn't the initiating trauma that creates seemingly insurmountable pain, but the lack of support after. — S. Kelley Harrell

The fact is, psychiatric help is not widely available to CIA agents - and as in the military, there is a stigma attached to admitting post-traumatic stress. — Michael Hastings

My dad was in the Second World War with General Patton. He won medals for bravery, but he came home quite damaged, so he was a handful. He told us some terrible stories, and I guess you'd say he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. — Jerry Hall

The post-traumatic shock from living in Florida never goes away, yet part of me is forever attached to that eccentric, heat-infested swamp. — Jennifer Harrison

I am Frustration. I am Memory-Lost. Sometimes I read a line a dozen times before it sticks. My creative force has slipped. I type slower, speak slower, think at a snail's pace. I'm Life shapeshifted by Post Traumatic Stress, bastardized by Fate. — Chila Woychik

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. — Judith Lewis Herman

I almost turned around right there. Stupid, yeah, but PTSADS doesn't care how stupid a trigger is. If you need me to spell that out, it's Post-Traumatic Stuffed Animal Death Syndrome. I thought it was pretty funny. Mom and the psychologist did not. The psychologist said I had substituted George for Dad and I actually had post-dad syndrome. I told her George was a fucking bunny. — Leah Raeder

In order to believe clients' accounts of trauma, you need to suspend any pre-conceived notions that you have about what is possible and impossible in human experience. As simple as they may sound, it may be difficult to do so. — Aphrodite Matsakis

In World War One, they called it shell shock. Second time around, they called it battle fatigue. After 'Nam, it was post-traumatic stress disorder. — Jan Karon

She [Sarah Palin] by no - has any basic understanding of what post -traumatic stress disorder is, so I think it gives the rest of us an opportunity to have a real conversation about some of these problems. — Jon Soltz

And I think that it's - the military has actually made improvements, so people are considering post-traumatic stress disorder as, at the least, a possible psychological problem. You know, when I was in Vietnam, it was just considered malingering. And we're making progress. — Karl Marlantes

The brave men and women, who serve their country and as a result, live constantly with the war inside them, exist in a world of chaos. But the turmoil they experience isn't who they are; the PTSD invades their minds and bodies. — Robert Koger